Touch
by Blackjack Gabbiani
Summary: Mars and Saturn have a shared passion, one that could cost them their standings in Team Galactic.


Since they had been recruited around the same time, rose through the ranks with nearly identical timing, and had been promoted together, it wasn't surprising that Saturn and Mars were close. It was obvious to those who saw them together, at least when they weren't on duty; the way they smiled and leaned towards each other and bossed lower agents out of their seats so they could sit together in the television room and hold hands.

But what no one else knew was what that closeness meant to them. They were beyond comrades, beyond friends, and while not lovers and it would never occur to them to say such a thing, they had a shared passion they could never speak to anyone. To make it known could jeopardize the thing they held most important in their lives--their standings in Team Galactic.

In most Teams, or so they'd heard through their reports, bonds between members were encouraged. It helped to foster loyalty, and some believed it made better fighters. Anyone could fight for a leader while they were present, but if the leader wasn't there, you would still fight as fiercely if you had someone you cared about to protect.

But Cyrus didn't believe such things. He told his agents that personal attachments were weaknesses, and that even to place him as a goal was distracting from the overarching work. They should fight for their cause rather than for any human. The only reason, in fact, that the reports contained details such as those was to deride them and the organizations that practiced them as inferior.

Of course, that didn't stop Mars and Saturn from being madly in love with him.

They knew more agents were. They had to be, with the degree of loyalty he inspired, able to win people to swear undying fealty in a matter of hours. He could charm the feathers off Ho-Oh itself, they thought, and still be able to get it to serve him.

It was understood between them. He would never return their affections, or at least it was very unlikely, so they would live out their fantasies through each other.

The first time was an unmitigated disaster. They fumbled around with each other, hastily discarding uniforms into crumpled piles on the floor, and couldn't figure out how to touch each other to maintain the illusion. They wound up in a pile on the bed, foreheads pressed tight but neither wanting to look at the other.

"You know..." Mars started, her voice barely audible even in the quiet room.

"Don't talk," Saturn hissed, trying to think only of their leader, and the girl's high voice wasn't helping.

"No, this...this is important." She sat up, having to untangle her leg from the sheet in the process. "He wouldn't do it normally, would he? He'd...probably never, like...s--screw us into the mattress or anything..." She wavered a bit, trying desperately not to picture what she knew could never happen, and trying to distract herself from the searing need she had. Her hand moved down her stomach with a twitch in her fingers, but stopped before she could do anything she would regret.

Saturn had rammed a pillow over the lower part of his torso, also trying not to think about it and also trying not to maneuver his hand to more interesting places. "No he...he wouldn't do that..." he admitted, trying to hide the gasping pant in his own voice, and silently mouthing /but oh god, I want him to/.

"If he'd, y'know...touch us..." a shiver ran through her core at her own words, "it wouldn't be like that...He'd be...all methodical about it and stuff..."

"He wouldn't want to make a mess," Saturn whispered but could still only think about being pinned down in reception to their leader's imagined lusts.

"No he wouldn't..." Mars decided, unable to shake the sensation of taking their leader's fictitious desires. Her hand twitched fully and she brightened. "Saturn!" she blurted out and he turned his head to her in surprise. "Fingers!"

The one word was enough for Saturn, who finally sunk his hand under the pillow, trying to imagine such a thing.

Mars flopped back against the twisted covers, surrendering to her own image of things. They both had their eyes closed and didn't speak a word until the shared exclamation of climax.

After, they plotted. They would need gloves, probably two pair for each so that they didn't have to go back and forth between their respective quarters, and they would need this and that, and they would have to lay like so, and on for a while before they realized at nearly the same time that they hadn't washed up. They were glad they'd been recently promoted, since commanders' quarters had private washrooms and they wouldn't have to share with anyone or make a mad dash down the hallway in their current states of disarray.

Saturn yanked the covers off his bed, balling them up and tossing them into the corner. Commanders still had to do their own laundry, but that wouldn't raise nearly as many questions. "Mars?" he called out. Her shock of red hair poked out of the washroom, and he wondered briefly how she managed to keep that neatly styled crescent seemingly without a strand out of place even in situations like that. "How...many others do you think are doing this?"

"None," she said, ducking back in. A second later she added "But there's a bunch out there that'd want to. Which means we could be trendsetters if we could tell anyone. They'd all be jealous of us."

"And that would disrupt productivity. He wouldn't like that." That was all either would say about that, that such things would go against the work ethic of the Team. Certainly not that it would violate Cyrus's personality; things of that nature had to be ignored if they were to maintain their delusions.

They met again several times; some were planned, some they spotted each other around the base at random and raced off towards the barracks together without a word spoken. It was the same basic idea each time; the bed would be arranged, the gloves would be pulled on, and fantasies would be acted.

Stimulating the other while lying side by side head to foot took some getting used to. Both had the thought that it would have been easier to use their mouths, although that would have been as unfamiliar to either of them as anything else they did, but they kept with it, the idea of their leader solid in their minds.

Mars had to teach Saturn a bit about female anatomy, but he caught on considerably quicker than her last boyfriend. But then, her last boyfriend wasn't a Galactic, much less a commander, so a learning curve was to be expected when dealing with someone of advanced qualifications. For his part, Saturn would sometimes guide Mars's hand to an especially sensitive spot, but that didn't take as long for her to pick up on things.

Some things changed from time to time. The gloves they had originally gotten were the ones that were readily obtainable from the Team itself, and hardly sufficient for the task at hand. Something coarser was needed, something to mimic those desired hands, made rough by years of mountain climbing and hard work. They had to work on being quiet, since neither of them could mimic Cyrus's harsh tone and it took them out of the moment to hear their own voice or that of the other. Sometimes they would try different timing, one after the other, but it never worked as well as when they received immediate rewards for their actions.

One time, once they were finished, they sat on the foot of Mars's bed, sheets wound up around them, and tried to pay more attention to the broadcast on the computer than to each other. It was on anyway; they had watched a file of Cyrus's most recent speech to get themselves in the right mindset, and now it was playing a video Mars had loaded of some band or another.

"You know this shouldn't happen," Saturn muttered, still watching the screen.

"Yeah..." she agreed halfheartedly, then after a moment's thought asked "you're not talking about our meetings, are you?"

"The music," he said. "It's not regulation; you could get in trouble for it."

"If I'm going to get in trouble, it's not going to be because of the music, you know."

They were silent for a while. Mars got up to get dressed when the song ended, and Saturn a few minutes later. "...I should go," he muttered as he pulled his uniform on, slowly so as not to wrinkle it. "I lead a mission tomorrow."

"So do I, but it should be over by the weekend. Want to come back over?"

He paused at the door, hand poised to turn the knob, and smiled although his back was to her. "You think I'd pass this up?" With a friendly salute, he exited, both he and Mars anticipating that weekend.

They performed their missions well, not letting thoughts of rough hands or that paralyzing gaze sway them from their tasks in the field. That was for the base, their quarters, and not to be let on in front of the lesser agents.

When Mars returned to the headquarters, she strolled in the front door uncaring who saw her although she had walked from the warehouse some blocks away past several civilians who stared in wonder at the mystery she stood for. Saturn was waiting for her in the lobby, looking positively giddy; or as giddy as he would allow himself to be where grunts could see him. "Mars! You won't believe this!" he called, waiting until she was closer to tell her the rest.

She picked up her pace, darting across the tiled floor and pausing only to swat a grunt who stepped out in front of her. "What is it?"

He dropped his voice, although not his smile, and leaned in to whisper in her ear. "Cyrus wants to see us in his office."

Mission leaders who returned around the same time were often called upon to deliver their reports together, provided the missions were of general natures. And both their missions had been simple acquisitions, so it was expected of them to save time and report to the Boss's office simultaneously.

To the outside, they were calm and cool, but they were excited as beginning trainers as they navigated the maze of warp tiles, the pattern only given to top officers to directly access immediately outside Cyrus's office. Grunts and lower agents had to take the hallway, which wasn't so long but had an odd smell to it. Or so such agents complained, but that was one of the things that made them lesser agents to begin with.

They raised their hands to knock at the same time; Mars with the flat of her hand and Saturn with his knuckles; but the sliding doors parted, pulled back into the wall with a faint hiss.

And almost immediately, a grunt flopped out, falling almost bonelessly to the ground with both hands to his throat. He greedily sucked in breath after breath, his chest heaving and his mouth panting.

"Next time I will not stop," Cyrus told the floundering agent as he resumed his seat at his imposing desk. "But now I have important people to tend to. Remove yourself from my presence."

The agent darted off down the hallway, but neither commander cared. They had an audience with Cyrus, and that was all that mattered. "Permission to enter, sir?" Mars asked, taking the initiative.

"Granted. I understand," he said, folding his hands on the desk, "that you both have news of the locations of objects that will serve us well."

But neither of them could speak. He was wearing gloves; and not only gloves, but black plastic gloves with that dull shine to them. Their lips quivered, their hands shook, Mars let out a faint moan while Saturn hoped his uniform was baggy enough to hide his distinct physical interest.

He seemed not to notice, however in retrospect they would realize the foolishness of trying to hide things in plain sight around him. "Saturn, you go first." The order made Mars breathe a sigh of relief.

But he pointed as he addressed, and with that finger, that finger in that glove pointing at him, Saturn could only choke out the words. "S-sir!" he stumbled, louder than he'd wanted, "the books we-were just as the re...ports said..."

Cyrus rose from the desk and approached him. "Keep going, I want to check something."

"-And the information they h-held checked out" Cyrus was in front of him "a-and we should be able to GET-!" The last word came out as a scream as Cyrus closed his hand over Saturn's crotch.

"Why do you stop?" the man asked casually, leaning over Saturn and not moving.

Mars watched intently, forcing her hands to remain behind her back, above the hoop of her skirt. Her eyes darted between the position of their leader's hand and the trembling need on Saturn's face, and she felt her knees buckle. She tried to stay aloft, but it was almost an afterthought.

Saturn's eyes were wide, and he stared at the wall past their leader. He had to keep talking, he had to focus on his mission and not think about the hand or even that the thumb was ever-so-slightly but most decidedly stroking him, he had to come--no, to say what he had meant to say. "To get what we needed from it..."

"And what do you need?" The normally even voice was smooth and almost calming, but the situation was anything but.

The Commander gritted his teeth "T...to serve you...to give you anything you demand..."

"Anything..." Mars echoed.

Her word, hushed and stilted though it was, was enough to make Cyrus snap his head up. He stepped back from Saturn, releasing his grip. Saturn nearly collapsed, and had to pitch forward to hold onto the desk for support as Cyrus approached Mars. "Anything I demand." It was a statement, devoid of connotation or emotion.

She nodded frantically. "Anything," she hissed as his hands closed over her breasts. "Anything!"

"I make demands of you frequently, all of you." Those gloved fingers were working again, thumbs swirling around the nipples, eliciting a shared gasp from her and Saturn. Still Cyrus continued speaking, his clip never changing. "Do you feel yourselves worthy of fulfilling those demands?"

"Aaaa...yes sir..." she moaned.

But he jerked his hands away and took a step back, eying both of them. They were quite the sight; swaying because they were unable to stand still, mouths open and panting. Cyrus scowled but neither of them noticed. "I have an idea. Stand in the middle of the room with your backs touching, and grab each other's hands."

Fumbling over their own feet, they managed to somehow stand as he requested. Each noticed the other's hands were shaking, and the combination of four shivery hands made for powerful trembles.

Cyrus circled them once, twice, and again, looking them up and down. "You know," he said in roughly the same tone he had used to speak to the threatened grunt, "to be so driven by things such as lust is to abandon our goals. Neither of you were able to report on your missions because you were so overcome by the impulses of your bodies. Would I be correct in assuming you were both aware of the other's passions?"

Both reluctantly nodded, grips tightening.

"Then this is a most grievous transgression," he sighed. His eyes unfixed for a moment; a sign he was lost in thought. As he snapped out of it, the agents cowered at his refocused gaze. "Commander Mars."

"Yes sir!" By using only two words, and single syllable words at that, Mars showed her distraction.

And then he was touching her. Not as he had, not as she dreamed, but even stroking her hair was enough to force a jolt through her core. "This...unusual style. I believed it to be a crescent moon at first, but it's something far different, isn't it?"

She nodded, gritting her teeth.

"And what was that again?" A flash of black as his hands fell back to his sides, and his hot breath pillowed her face as he hissed in her ear.

"My..." The moment she opened her mouth to speak, the initial word combined with a passionate moan. Against her back, Saturn tightened. "It's my Purugly, sir...its head is shaped--"

"If you believe I do not know what one looks like, then you believe me to be an ignorant fool," Cyrus snapped. His hands left her, and he circled around to tug on Saturn's own locks. "You."

"S...sir?" Saturn cursed the shake in his voice, in his hands, in his entire body.

"You were promoted some months ago, however you wear your hair in the style of a lower agent. Tell me about that."

"I." He tensed up as that black-clad hand tangled in a strand of dark blue that framed the side of his face. The shake was getting worse and there wasn't a damned thing he could do about it. "I..."

"You said that already. Repetition is needless." The words came in a whisper that sent jolts down the spines of both of the agents.

"I'm sorry sir..." Saturn had to steel his focus to answer the question asked of him. "The hair...it's regulation, sir. I wouldn't want to change it because it's what you ask of us."

Disregarding that commanders were given the choice of personal presentation because at the point of promotion they were considered trustworthy, Cyrus kept circling but kept his hand in place, yanking down on the strand and whispering in Saturn's other ear "The color is what you had upon recruitment. Such a thing is deviation enough."

The movement put Cyrus's arm across Saturn's chest, and Saturn tried desperately not to think about the closeness, the pressure, the absolute burning desire, and took a step back out of instinct. Mars had had her eyes wrenched shut, both reveling in the sensation of seeing the image she so desired and trying desperately to tell herself it would never lead to anything further, and the sudden jolt startled her back to full awareness.

And he hadn't forgotten her. Releasing the dark blue tendril, Cyrus reached over Saturn's shoulder to brush a coarse artificial finger down her cheekbone, adjusting his stance by bringing his near leg between Saturn's thighs. "And you, such a vibrant shade..." he muttered, bringing his hand further away from her hair as he trailed the touch down her throat.

She sucked in a gasping breath and as her teeth gritted she realized at last how much the rigid hoop on her skirt pulled her uniform up, and the chill air in the office made her tingle even through her tights. That brushing finger continued its downward path, lightening pressure at her collarbone and intensifying it as the motion furthered to her thinly-uniformed flesh, and she felt as though she would lose consciousness.

Saturn's eyes were wide, his mouth open and panting. Cyrus's leg was dangerously close to pressing against the manifestation of his traitorous thoughts, but he couldn't pull away because he was pinned between them, and part of him wanted to remain anyway. But before he could do much anything else, Cyrus leaned in to murmur in Mars's ear, his face brushing against Saturn's, then it was there and against oh god and Saturn screamed, the sensation proving too much for him. He crumpled to the ground deliberately, having to force himself out from between the two without caring how unnatural an action it was or how obvious his movement was, and doubled over, trying to keep himself from crying. He had humiliated himself in front of his leader, and there was no going back from that.

Mars bit her lower lip as her backboard disappeared, both in detached pity for her comrade and in anticipation of having the touch all to herself, but when Cyrus dropped his grip and withdrew, she slowly looked back.

Cyrus stared down at the quivering agent at his feet, mouth tightening in disgust. "Commander Saturn," he addressed, his voice grim with a faint snarl, and Saturn winced and pulled tighter. "This is the result of your lusts. It leads to weakness, and those whose hearts stray from our goals--"

"Mars has music, sir!" Saturn blurted out in a rush, dropping his head to the floor just in time to avoid Mars's gaze.

Her mouth hung open, not the expression of insane arousal the two had shared; that feeling was gone in an instant. Not only had Saturn come closer to getting what they both dreamed of, albeit under far different circumstances, he betrayed her. Before, she had never considered the music to be any big deal, but the second the words left him, the tunes played dirges and the singers formed a firing squad. "Sa...Saturn...!"

"Go on." The command was hushed, the venom gone from Cyrus's voice, although it remained quite sharp. "Tell me about this music."

Saturn's jaw and hands trembled as he risked a gaze at their leader. Mars was beside the man, and Saturn pulled his look away from them. "Nonregulation music. Pop songs. The entertainment of the masses, sir." He had tried to be professional, but seeing Mars there, even out of the corner of his eye, sent a sob through him, and he buried his face in his hands.

She could not react before Cyrus turned to her. "Commander Mars. Is this true?"

Wringing her hands for several seconds, she finally answered with a small nod, faced off to the side so as not to meet his eyes either.

"Then this is even more serious than I believed." He began to return to his seat but stopped as he reached the desk. "The two of you are top officers, and words cannot express how gravely disappointed I am in the both of you. You have sullied this organization with your lustful distractions, with your disobedience, with your disregard for our ideals. You set aside your goals for your own pleasures. The only thing at present staying my hand from firing you both is that you have proven yourselves in the past, and I believe you are capable of redeeming yourselves to the point of regained trust."

They both sighed at that, almost relieved. They would get second chances! But they knew better than to expect it would remain at that.

And of course he kept talking, and as he spoke and took his seat again, he peeled his gloves off, ending the dream-turned-nightmare. "However, there is still the matter of your transgressions to deal with."

Saturn pulled himself to his feet but remained bent over as much as he could to still be deemed respectful, trying to hide the foul spot on his uniform. "Anything, sir..." he whispered, a shadow of their previous vows.

"Yes, anything..." Mars echoed. It had taken her a moment to find her voice after Saturn spoke, and she fell silent again under the disapproving glare of their leader.

"Commander Saturn," Cyrus addressed with the initial word snapped as though it was vile, "You train a Toxicroak, correct?"

The younger man nodded, still trembling but unwilling to take his eyes off his leader.

"And Commander Mars, your Purugly..." He trailed off, something he only did deliberately.

"Yes sir...?" She tried not to show her apprehension but it was in vain.

Cyrus closed his eyes, the glower still evident. "You both have violated the core ethics of this organization, far deeper than I initially believed. Originally I had intended this punishment to be temporary, but now you have left me no choice but to declare it permanent, as long as you are in my employ." They flashed open and the two agents gasped. "I have made my decision. The two of you will adopt the visuals of the others' prized pok mon. I expect this to be instated within twenty-four hours, lest you lose my favor entirely."

Mars's hand flew to her hair. So that was why he had spent so much time talking about the style. But was that really his punishment? "Sir, far be it for me to question you, but is...that all?"

Saturn, however, winced heavily. "Mars...don't."

"Think of it this way," Cyrus said, his voice even and calm and without menace, which somehow made it even more intimidating. "You will carry those marks with you as long as you serve me. Every day you will see that mark, and every day you will remember your sins."

Unsteadily, she started to reach for Saturn, for the familiar comfort of a friend, but the driving beat of what had previously been her favorite song filled her head and she jerked her arm back with a sharp cry. "Sir!"

"A...a symbol of shame...yes sir..." Saturn mumbled almost incoherently, eyes wide and unfixed, unwilling to look at either of them.

"Yes. Now, I expect to see the two of you back in here to deliver your reports within the twenty-four hours. With the proper adjustments, of course. You are both dismissed." That said, Cyrus turned his attention to his computer, starting to type something and shutting out the other two. After a moment it was clear that he would have nothing further to do with them in their current states. The agents glanced at each other but no words were shared.

They left the office in a dual haze, heading in opposite directions. Neither would take the warp tiles. Neither would find themselves at the other's door again. Neither would take the other's hand in dull moments again. Neither would trust the other again.

Mars tried to block the whole thing from her mind, steeling her nerves against the actively suppressed memories of even the good times. Saturn threw himself into his work, swearing blind devotion to the denial of all else.

But one time she happened to put on some music as she worked, and he happened to pass by her door, and for a brief moment they both felt the tug of their old bond. 


End file.
